The federal government has introduced a new Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-driven system to monitor every stage of the school feeding value chain under the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP).
Aderemi Adebowale, national programme manager of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), disclosed this during an interview with journalists in Abuja on Sunday. She explained that an end-to-end application had been developed to promote transparency and accountability in the scheme.
Ms Adebowale’s comments came after Vice President Kashim Shettima said Nigeria might need about N1 trillion annually to sustain nationwide coverage of the programme.
The vice president made the statement at the National Policy Forum on the Institutionalisation and Implementation of the Renewed Hope National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme, which was organised by ActionAid Nigeria.
Represented by the special adviser to the president on economic affairs, Tope Fasua, Mr Shettima stated that the programme should not be viewed as a financial burden. Instead, he described it as a nation-building investment with broad social, economic, and security benefits.
However, many Nigerians have expressed doubts about the claim. Critics argued that the figure lacked proper breakdowns and feared it could reduce public trust in the programme. They pointed to past problems under the administration of late President Muhammadu Buhari, when the initiative was accused of being mismanaged through inflated contracts and corruption.
Responding to these concerns, Ms Adebowale reassured citizens that the ICT-based monitoring system would block loopholes for mismanagement.
“We are going to be using an end-to-end app that monitors anywhere our money goes. For instance, the cooks are no longer going to be getting paid to go and buy the food items for the children.
We will pay the suppliers when we monitor that they have delivered to the local government where they are supposed to deliver. They will, in turn, package the food items, give them to the cook for preparation for the children,” she said.
She added that cooks would now be closely tracked. “Every day, the cooks are monitored by our ward verifiers to ensure that they bring the food to school. And as these are being done, we are documenting everything.
There will be a dashboard where movement, feeding of the children in every school in Nigeria, will be seen live, and then we will store it in the cloud,” she explained.
According to her, the system is designed with a stronger Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) mechanism. “From our suppliers, to our agri-vendors, to our farmers, to our cooks, to our verifiers; the end-to-end app will monitor every movement, including logistics,” she said.
The programme manager also revealed that the agency is working with development partners to strengthen social investment efforts. Some of the women working in the chain, including farmers and cooks, would benefit from training and empowerment through these partnerships.
“The Renewed Hope National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme is, therefore, a robust feeding programme now in Nigeria. It is going to be run openly and transparently, putting out every detail to the public space for accountability, unlike the way it had been done before,” she said.
She further noted that suppliers would be registered on a platform with their National Identification Number and linked with QR codes for better quality control.
“With the QR code, once any food or item that has been purchased does not meet up to standard, we will know where the item is from. So, there is a lot that has been put in place now, for the standardisation and sustainability of the school feeding programme,” she explained.
The programme, which is a key part of the Renewed Hope Agenda, targeted feeding 10 million pupils in 2024, with plans to expand to 20 million children in 2025. According to officials, this scale-up is designed to improve school enrollment and reduce the number of out-of-school children across the country.